Future MMO discussion

froog

so i've played WOW and will probably get SWTOR soon, but i've always yearned for a different kind of MMO experience. WOW and similar games play like a single player game until level cap really, just grinding away on quests, interaction with other players is either getting ganked by a higher ranked player or chatting rubbish in the cities. it never really seems like an immersive multiplayer world. when you reach level cap, you're still doing quests but with other people. still not feeling immersed in a large populated world. and despite a game having millions of players, you only interact with a few thousand on your particular server.

i'd like to see an MMO in the future that gets rid of this kind of quest grinding, have everyone pretty much at the same level at the start. and have everyone play in one truly massive world (maybe the size of earth!) that expands as more players join the game. the emphasis would be on exploring and setting up working towns. of course fighting would play a part as well. these current MMO worlds never feel massive, it never really feels like an epic journey travelling across the unknown. i'd like to venture out from a town or city and maybe be travelling for hours until i met someone. that meeting would be much more exciting. where did this person come from? do they have any stories from where they came? do they want to travel together for a while? i'd also like a 3-D shooter view, i think you feel much more immersed in the world.

anyway just some thoughts. what would you all like in the next gen MMOs?

degrassinoel

i'd like for some cute as a fox game designer/developer to pick up all the nifty aspects of previous mmo's and implement them into a single masterpiece mmo.

I know a lot of companies do this anyway, but it just seems to fall on its face most of the time.

Some great stuff i'd like to see in a single mmo

The guild fortress/castle buildings from Age of Conan, as well as the sieges on same. Design and build it with your guild, be a part of the actual foundation of your guilds gaff!

Resource/tradeskill gathering that isnt mindnumbingly dull.

mini-games are fun but get tedious these were quite fun, plants vs zombies(wow), space combat(swtor) but with some more variety

Collision detection, Warhammer online's CD was okay, but lets say i'm a 7 foot tall tank thats build like a brick****house, and i dont want you running past me in all my fancy armour, so i block you into a corner and pummel you with my spikey shield and mace. Proper CD should not allow you to escape without using some ability/skill. Proper CD would be fantastic!

I got loads more but i'll let others have a chance before i go on a rant

Nody

froog wrote: »

so i've played WOW and will probably get SWTOR soon, but i've always yearned for a different kind of MMO experience. WOW and similar games play like a single player game until level cap really, just grinding away on quests, interaction with other players is either getting ganked by a higher ranked player or chatting rubbish in the cities. it never really seems like an immersive multiplayer world. when you reach level cap, you're still doing quests but with other people. still not feeling immersed in a large populated world. and despite a game having millions of players, you only interact with a few thousand on your particular server.

i'd like to see an MMO in the future that gets rid of this kind of quest grinding, have everyone pretty much at the same level at the start. and have everyone play in one truly massive world (maybe the size of earth!) that expands as more players join the game. the emphasis would be on exploring and setting up working towns. of course fighting would play a part as well. these current MMO worlds never feel massive, it never really feels like an epic journey travelling across the unknown. i'd like to venture out from a town or city and maybe be travelling for hours until i met someone. that meeting would be much more exciting. where did this person come from? do they have any stories from where they came? do they want to travel together for a while? i'd also like a 3-D shooter view, i think you feel much more immersed in the world.

anyway just some thoughts. what would you all like in the next gen MMOs?

You've pretty much described Eve imo. The simple fact is even with "open world" MMOs people will tend to cluster to one given area because it is (or perceived to be) best vs. effort it takes to be there (this tends to be a relatively easy area as a side note).

Personally I'm moving more and more away from PvE being anything more then filler content and more and more towards full or close to full PvP instead. A classic example of this would be Global Agenda (not a MMO in the normal sense) which has several different PvE modes (inc. solo, group and raid of up to 15 people) at various difficulty levels (easy to insane) with award accordingly vs. bots. For me (and many other players) the meat of the game how ever was (is? I've not played for close to a year I guess) the PvP; either as battle grounds or as clan vs. clan. Why? Because only another player can at the end of the day give you replayability. Beat a boss? Yea, now do it another hundred times using the same tactics until you get your shiny piece of loot and work on the next boss. Play PvP and you're not going to be sure what the other player is actually going to do though; that adds a new dimension to it (at least for me).

The thing is that as a game it has to be designed to allow you to get to the meat (PvP) relatively quickly yet allow you to keep on going for a long time while there (be it alts, alternative maps or what not) and reward you for your persistence (yet not in a way that makes you crush all new players in front of you).

froog

agree about pvp, always the most fun part of WOW. but it always felt too structured for me, arenas, battlegrounds, etc

Stev_o

Planetside 2 has some of the criteria the OP mentioned.

Spunge

I think everythink i wanted in an MMO came with darkfall, that i quit 2 months later.

FPS combat
no levels, only skills
Full loot pvp
capturing towns/cities

YouSavedMyLife

Theres a new MMO coming out this summer called Tera. Its seems like your average Asian MMO but the combat seems really fluid and seems to play more like an action game then an MMO. Its already out in asian and apparently it flopped on its face. Im gonna give it a chance when its released in Europe anyway.

nix

Barbican mmo's i call em, its just like normal MMO's except, with the multiplayer taken out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONwfT7O_PgQ

Sadly, to favour the casual gamers, most MMO games have eradicated the need to group up or have fun with many others, they have also made zones etc less populated by introducing different instances so its less interaction in general with other players


Kinda hoping Swtor went away from that but they do the instance zones too apparently, lame.

Fingers crossed for GW's 2 or a worthy fps mmo, that id like to see, fps is where the real skill flourishes with your own skill as opposed to gear/level, so it will be in everybodies best interest to play with as many people as possible to see their actual skill as opposed to stating just your experience on a forum web page out of game ;D

Eoin247

The problem with having actual skill as a large element though is accessability for the majority of casual gamers.

Spunge

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Its already out in asian and apparently it flopped on its face.

Which according to a lot of peeps ive read, thats a good thing, because asians love their grindfests like lineage 2. Maybe there wasnt enough grind for them. Have to wait and see, not getting my hopes up but id play a beta for sure.

humanji

Spunge wrote:

Which according to a lot of peeps ive read, thats a good thing, because asians love their grindfests like lineage 2. Maybe there wasnt enough grind for them. Have to wait and see, not getting my hopes up but id play a beta for sure.

Or maybe there was too much grind for them! :eek:


I think you're all forgetting what is desperately needed to make an MMO infinitely better: product placement.

PC Gamer wrote:

A job listing on Blizzard.com spotted by a member of NeoGAF suggests that Blizzard are planning to include product placement in their new MMO.

The job listing for a franchise development producer. Among the job requirements, one requires that applicants be able to “work with major consumer brands to facilitate product placement and licensing within the world of Blizzard Entertainment’s next-gen MMO that enhances the gameplay experience.”

It’s hard to remember an occasion when product placement in a game has especially enhanced anything, but the inclusion of modern products would suggest a contemporary or futuristic setting for Blizzard’s next MMO, codenamed Project Titan.

Project Titan first appeared on a leaked planning document which pegged it for a late 2013 release. In February last year Blizzard CEO, Mike Morhaime said that Blizzard have “some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of Warcraft team, working on the project.

“We’re really trying to leverage all the lessons we’ve learned throughout the years. So we’re kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that’s completely new and fresh. We’re not trying to make a WoW sequel,” he said. Beyond that, very little is known about Blizzard’s enigmatic new MMO. What do you think, could product placement add to the experience?

Nody

humanji wrote: »

I think you're all forgetting what is desperately needed to make an MMO infinitely better

Or simply Free to play (which is what I'd expect Titan to go/be and/or reduced fee to grab market shares, the 12.99 / 14.99 USD harps back for far to many years now and I'd hope/expect Blizzard to buck the trend with Titan regarding the price).

TheDoc

imo Free to play models are bollox.

You end up HAVING to spend money to get to the peak levels of efficeny and performance. I'm happy paying a monthly fee where everyone is on level ground and can access everything.

This free to play model where there is different levels of membership for differnet things just looks so pathetically rubbish.

Take even Leagueoflegends. While a decent F2P model, if I was really competitive, I'd have to spent alot of money up front to buy my runepages and runes rather then wait the time it takes to build enough free points to get them

Nody

But the thing is a F2P model mean you don't have to pay if you don't want to (peak performance is not always needeed after all). I'll use World of Tanks as an example; it's fully F2P but if you buy premium (~10 EUR a month) you get 50% more exp and money from the fights. Your tank as a premium member shots just as hard as the next guy but you can advance faster if you go premium. If you're not liking the game after a week though you'll simply uninstall and move on, no money spent.

Now there are people who have grinded up to the top tier with out it but for the people who expect to be active it is simply another monthly subscription and nothing else. The reason F2P is going to be the future is very simple, there is a huge crowd of people who don't want to pay to play and this pulls them in. This same group are usually ok with buying one off items (i.e. golden AK-47 etc.) or if it is interesting enough start to pay per month to play.

Personally I'm fine with the F2P model as long as the premium items/benefits (and there always will be) are not to extreme/expensive (I remember a game were to reach the best upgrades available you'd need to spend around 18k USD which is just silly) or unbalancing. I simply treat it like any other MMO with a slightly altered subscription model (as in the end that is what it is). More importantly though is that I can go back at any time after I leave with out having to buy a month's subscription to check out the new game modes etc. and if I like it THEN I can subscribe again. This reduces the wall for me to return to an older game as there is no upfront cost of checking it out again.

Eoin247

TheDoc wrote: »

imo Free to play models are bollox.

You end up HAVING to spend money to get to the peak levels of efficeny and performance. I'm happy paying a monthly fee where everyone is on level ground and can access everything.

This free to play model where there is different levels of membership for differnet things just looks so pathetically rubbish.

Take even Leagueoflegends. While a decent F2P model, if I was really competitive, I'd have to spent alot of money up front to buy my runepages and runes rather then wait the time it takes to build enough free points to get them

I completely agree with you on this one! I hate these advertised F2P games which have most of the game locked up in shops which you have to pay real money for.

MikeyJoyce

Ok i read your post and i cant believe nobody has been Discussing Guild Wars 2 here! :O shame!

** This may be a tad long **

So i played WoW ( The mighty World of Warcraft ) for a long time and loved it well at least i taught i did.
WoW gave me lots of fun and enjoyable nights i really did enjoy playing but it was for the community and not the game itself. I enjoyed my friends in game and the vent banter and all the craic that was had just raiding and pvping. When a lot of my friends left the game and moved onto other things i found my interest for the game dwindling at an alarming rate.

After some taught and consideration i decided that WoW did not enforce a sense of community as the poster has said it does not feel like a true multiplayer World. Take for example the feature of tagging a mob. I think this feature has destroyed what sense of community there is in a game. Imagine in real life if you found someone tackling a Bear or wild wolf ( lol well you wouldn't start smacking it with a sword ) but you wouldn't run off to find your own enemy, This is what annoyed me in WoW when you 'tagged' an enemy effectively he was your enemy and yours alone most people questing or not would bypass you and leave you to sort out your own problems! this is a major flaw! How can their be a great sense of community within the game if people wont even help each other in the open world!

Ok after that i want to explain why i am excited and you should be too for Guild Wars 2 and how it will change the future of MMO's.

Guild Wars 2 is developed by ArenaNet which also produced Guild Wars back in 2005 which was a major success. ArenaNet was founded by 3 of the main programmers at Blizzard who where fed up of how the company was running and decided they wanted to set up their own company and create an mmo to combat all the problems of WoW and create something for the community.

The pricing model that was chosen by ArenaNet was Buy-to-Play which means you purchase the game and thats it. No monthly fees or anything!
You pay for what you get and then when expansions are released you have the choice to purchase them.

Guild Wars 2 will have the same pricing plan meaning you get to play a triple A mmo with no monthly costs! :O how can this be you ask?
Well no they did not skip on production Quality the game looks amazing.
If you havent started watching some videos of the game already i can recommend some of TotalBiscuits Videos or search for The Shatterer Guild Wars 2 and you will see what i mean.

Guild wars 2 will feature an in game cash shop BUT WILL NOT OFFER statistical advantages over other players meaning the shop will be purely cosmetic with costumes and the like of which was seen in Guild wars 1.

Quests are gone! Gone are the Days of running around going from A to B killing 10 boar and returning to point A to inform the NPC of the boar you have massacred which where just standing around in a field. Gone are the days of spamming Quests which are so boring and meant to take time to encourage you to spend more time in game and such spend more money on Subscription fees.
Guild Wars 2 Has dynamic events. Dynamic Events are events that unfold throughout the world as you move throughout it and are effected by players and the environment. One day you wonder out of a Major city and see that your favorite bakery stand is being held up by a thief and its your job to stop it! Or you are wondering throughout the country side and you stroll into a village to discover that the village is being attacked and the villagers slain by pirates and it is your job to stop it OR not!
For guild wars 2 does not expect you to always succeed. Sometimes the villain wins and the dynamic event can continue down another path where the pirates will now occupy the village and set it up as a base camp and start planning of invading villages all the while hundreds of Dynamic events are happening simultaneously throughout the World! This is really going to bring a sense of scale of how Dynamic and versatile the Guild Wars 2 Universe is.

Here is a quote from the guild wars Website on Dynamic Events

Enter the living world of Guild Wars 2 - filled with thousands of dynamic events that ebb and flow through the course of your adventures. One day there may be a thriving village filled with vendors and townspeople, the next day that village may be a smoking ruin overrun by centaurs.
Dynamic events evolve and cascade across the world in response to how you, the player, interact with them, leaving persistent effects in the game world. Will you save that village or let it burn? The choice rests with you and your fellow players.
The Dynamic Event system in Guild Wars 2 is built to be scalable and encourage impromptu group play where players are naturally cooperating together and not worried about encroaching on each other. The more the merrier!

I don't know about you but this sounds Game Changing!

Now back to the point i was making about WoW previously where they have implemented the tagging system. This system is non existant in GW2 if someone sees you attacking Monsters out in the open world and you need a hand the game encourages that!
Both party's are rewarded for the kill this means that people can go out and experience the world and run into someone and make a friend without having to worry about someone complaining you are stealing their Mobs!

This is amazing well in my opinion anyways people will be able to feel that epicness again and be able to talk to people and truly experience the Massive ever changing dynamic world of GW2.

Anyway i think i have blabbed on an awful lot now and i will be suprised if any of you have made it this far down lol

But anyways check out this video which explains 10 reasons to be interested in Guild Wars 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBC_ig73aMs

To make this post relevant i will add that i think MMO's of the future will change after Guild Wars 2 and how it is a fantastic thing for the community i hope some of you who were not knowledgeable about the game will now check it out and see for yourself why i am so excited for Guild Wars 2!

Eoin247

MikeyJoyce wrote: »

Ok i read your post and i cant believe nobody has been Discussing Guild Wars 2 here! :O shame!

** This may be a tad long **

So i played WoW ( The mighty World of Warcraft ) for a long time and loved it well at least i taught i did.
WoW gave me lots of fun and enjoyable nights i really did enjoy playing but it was for the community and not the game itself. I enjoyed my friends in game and the vent banter and all the craic that was had just raiding and pvping. When a lot of my friends left the game and moved onto other things i found my interest for the game dwindling at an alarming rate.

After some taught and consideration i decided that WoW did not enforce a sense of community as the poster has said it does not feel like a true multiplayer World. Take for example the feature of tagging a mob. I think this feature has destroyed what sense of community there is in a game. Imagine in real life if you found someone tackling a Bear or wild wolf ( lol well you wouldn't start smacking it with a sword ) but you wouldn't run off to find your own enemy, This is what annoyed me in WoW when you 'tagged' an enemy effectively he was your enemy and yours alone most people questing or not would bypass you and leave you to sort out your own problems! this is a major flaw! How can their be a great sense of community within the game if people wont even help each other in the open world!

Ok after that i want to explain why i am excited and you should be too for Guild Wars 2 and how it will change the future of MMO's.

Guild Wars 2 is developed by ArenaNet which also produced Guild Wars back in 2005 which was a major success. ArenaNet was founded by 3 of the main programmers at Blizzard who where fed up of how the company was running and decided they wanted to set up their own company and create an mmo to combat all the problems of WoW and create something for the community.

The pricing model that was chosen by ArenaNet was Buy-to-Play which means you purchase the game and thats it. No monthly fees or anything!
You pay for what you get and then when expansions are released you have the choice to purchase them.

Guild Wars 2 will have the same pricing plan meaning you get to play a triple A mmo with no monthly costs! :O how can this be you ask?
Well no they did not skip on production Quality the game looks amazing.
If you havent started watching some videos of the game already i can recommend some of TotalBiscuits Videos or search for The Shatterer Guild Wars 2 and you will see what i mean.

Guild wars 2 will feature an in game cash shop BUT WILL NOT OFFER statistical advantages over other players meaning the shop will be purely cosmetic with costumes and the like of which was seen in Guild wars 1.

Quests are gone! Gone are the Days of running around going from A to B killing 10 boar and returning to point A to inform the NPC of the boar you have massacred which where just standing around in a field. Gone are the days of spamming Quests which are so boring and meant to take time to encourage you to spend more time in game and such spend more money on Subscription fees.
Guild Wars 2 Has dynamic events. Dynamic Events are events that unfold throughout the world as you move throughout it and are effected by players and the environment. One day you wonder out of a Major city and see that your favorite bakery stand is being held up by a thief and its your job to stop it! Or you are wondering throughout the country side and you stroll into a village to discover that the village is being attacked and the villagers slain by pirates and it is your job to stop it OR not!
For guild wars 2 does not expect you to always succeed. Sometimes the villain wins and the dynamic event can continue down another path where the pirates will now occupy the village and set it up as a base camp and start planning of invading villages all the while hundreds of Dynamic events are happening simultaneously throughout the World! This is really going to bring a sense of scale of how Dynamic and versatile the Guild Wars 2 Universe is.

Here is a quote from the guild wars Website on Dynamic Events

I don't know about you but this sounds Game Changing!

Now back to the point i was making about WoW previously where they have implemented the tagging system. This system is non existant in GW2 if someone sees you attacking Monsters out in the open world and you need a hand the game encourages that!
Both party's are rewarded for the kill this means that people can go out and experience the world and run into someone and make a friend without having to worry about someone complaining you are stealing their Mobs!

This is amazing well in my opinion anyways people will be able to feel that epicness again and be able to talk to people and truly experience the Massive ever changing dynamic world of GW2.

Anyway i think i have blabbed on an awful lot now and i will be suprised if any of you have made it this far down lol

But anyways check out this video which explains 10 reasons to be interested in Guild Wars 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBC_ig73aMs

To make this post relevant i will add that i think MMO's of the future will change after Guild Wars 2 and how it is a fantastic thing for the community i hope some of you who were not knowledgeable about the game will now check it out and see for yourself why i am so excited for Guild Wars 2!

This is a very nice post and i'm watching the video you quoted now. I agree with you about the potential game changer. Your post has made me even more impatient for it to come out soon! Damn you

Venom

"Quests are gone! Gone are the Days of running around going from A to B killing 10 boar and returning to point A to inform the NPC of the boar you have massacred which where just standing around in a field. Gone are the days of spamming Quests which are so boring and meant to take time to encourage you to spend more time in game and such spend more money on Subscription fees.
Guild Wars 2 Has dynamic events. Dynamic Events are events that unfold throughout the world as you move throughout it and are effected by players and the environment. One day you wonder out of a Major city and see that your favorite bakery stand is being held up by a thief and its your job to stop it! Or you are wondering throughout the country side and you stroll into a village to discover that the village is being attacked and the villagers slain by pirates and it is your job to stop it OR not!
For guild wars 2 does not expect you to always succeed. Sometimes the villain wins and the dynamic event can continue down another path where the pirates will now occupy the village and set it up as a base camp and start planning of invading villages all the while hundreds of Dynamic events are happening simultaneously throughout the World! This is really going to bring a sense of scale of how Dynamic and versatile the Guild Wars 2 Universe is."

In other games that have used a similar system such Warhammer and Rift, the dynamic quests can screw you over if your too low level or there are not enough players taking part in the event. If the devs are not 100% on the ball design wise this could be a major issue.

Dustaz

Like it or not, Titan will **** on all current and in development mmos and devour them all.

Dcully

Rift has most of what i want in an MMO right now.

Eoin247

Dustaz wrote: »

Like it or not, Titan will **** on all current and in development mmos and devour them all.

Or blizzard might just play it safe with a new skinned wow :rolleyes:

nix

I'm with Eoin, considering how EA have went with their games, it seems Blizz are following a similar path, with in game advertising and taking preference over money hording over providing proper games etc..

Judging by the trend of gaming as of late, im pretty sure Project titan will be drastically over rated..

I bet its just a starcraft MMO anywayz!

Blizz havent come up with a new game platform in ages!

Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, thats all they have been rinsing and repeating for the last 20 years.. Lost vikings mmo? not likely

Will the new game be anything other than the above 3? I hope so but im not gonna hold my breath

Kirby

It's a starcraft mmo. SC2 is vastly popular in the West and in the East so it just makes sense. It will also hook in the warhammer 40k people too and people who don't like "elves and magic and stuff."

I'd bet my house on it.

Calhoun

Kirby wrote: »

It's a starcraft mmo. SC2 is vastly popular in the West and in the East so it just makes sense. It will also hook in the warhammer 40k people too and people who don't like "elves and magic and stuff."

I'd bet my house on it.

Picture of the house before we take any bets. Is there any eta on Titan?

Nody

Calhoun wrote: »

Picture of the house before we take any bets. Is there any eta on Titan?

2014/15 if I remember correctly.

Eoin247

Calhoun wrote: »

Picture of the house before we take any bets. Is there any eta on Titan?

Nody wrote: »

2014/15 if I remember correctly.

I've been reading 2013 i think. Unless i'm thinking of another mmo. I'd say they will announce what it is sometime this year.

MikeyJoyce

Titan? By blizzard? 2013? Not a chance lol

Blizzard take FOREVER to do anything and when they do it they spend years on it.
Titan is still only the codename for the game with the game not announced yet meaning its probably very far off.

I would put money that the game will not come before 2014 at the earliest.
With my guess 1st quarter 2015 or so.

Look at Diablo 3 that has been in development so long i have given up on it.. =[

Oh well! gw2!

Dustaz

Not a chance we'll see Titan any time before 2015. About the only thing they've said about it so far is "Its not an existing IP". So its not starcraft. Although the rumour mill has been persistant in saying its an MMOFPS set in the future so i guess it wont be that different.

Eoin247

Dustaz wrote: »

Not a chance we'll see Titan any time before 2015. About the only thing they've said about it so far is "Its not an existing IP". So its not starcraft. Although the rumour mill has been persistant in saying its an MMOFPS set in the future so i guess it wont be that different.

I doubt it's just a FPS. Maybe a bit of a hybrid between a RPG and a FPS leaning towards an RPG. Especially considering the type of genres blizzard make.

IRL_Sinister

So I read the first page and noticed the most important aspect of next-gen MMO's hadn't been discussed. Then I flicked to page 2 and everything was resolved.

2.5 words

Guild Wars 2

/thread.

froog

definitely gonna check out GW2 after the comments here. thanks all